Nova
Character Details Nova is a long range sniper that excels at taking out zerg units in one shot. However, in exchange for high damage and range, she is one of the lowest health characters in the game. Unable to tank ultralisks in all stages of the game, she has to hide behind crap patrol forces and deal damage. Nova is extremely good at taking out bosses and zerg units because of certain masteries buffing her skill snipe. However, she has so little health that vile roaches can kill her. Active Skills Strafe This skill increases Nova's attack speed by 500% for 4 seconds at the cost of damage and movement speed. However, this is an overall increase in dps, thus it is very helpful in all stages of the game. However, snipe is a much more reliable option as strafe's initial cooldown of 60 seconds. Displace This skill makes Nova invulnerable for a short time and cloaked for a slightly longer time. This skill is to make up for the lack of defensive talents such as emergency kit or adaptive armor. This skill has a pretty long cooldown, thus players should use it wisely. Snipe Snipe is an extremely strong skill and considered to be the most powerful aspect of Nova. Snipe deals high damage to a single zerg unit and has a relatively long cooldown at the start of the game, however it can be upgraded through talents and certain masteries to decrease the cooldown, increase the cast time and increase the damage to the point that it can one shot ultralisks. Upgraded snipe ability can be used to easily take down bosses, thus Nova is a very good character to have in a team. Combat Drone Combat drone is a skill that deploys a combat drone that moves around with Nova. It is a flying untargetable unit that attacks nearby zerg units or structures. Its damage scales with Nova's levels and the count can be increased to 4 with the help of certain talents and the Drone Hanger Mastery. Combat drones deal quite a lot of damage when Nova is moving away from zerg units or bosses and this allows her to deal damage even when not attacking. Tac Nuke Strike This ability, universal across all heroes, gives the character the ability to call down a tactical nuke strike at the target location after 20 seconds. Nuke damage, radius, cost, time to make and cast range can be upgraded by certain nuke talents and the nuke mastery. Nukes are very good at clearing buildings without getting close to them, thus causing no damage to be taken by the character at all. However, nukes take some time to build (6-60 seconds) and can be very costly in harder difficulties, although that can be reduced drastically by certain talents and a pyro mastery. Note: The picture shows two nukes available. Each player enters the game with a maximum of 1 nuke, but can increase the count to 2 by learning a talent. (Or mastery in pyro's case) Passive Skills Critical Hit Critical Hit is a strong skill that only nova has. This adds the chance for Nova to deal high damage when she attacks, and can restore energy when certain masteries are learnt. This is very good to be used together with strafe, allowing the damage output to be increased heavily. Imperial Funds Imperial funds gives the character a range of minerals from time to time to fund their war efforts. This allows the character to build more nukes and clear out the map quickly. Inspire Inspire increases maximum life, life regeneration and attack speed of crap patrol units that are nearby the character. This increases the longer the unit stays in the character's vicinity. This is very useful when pushing into heavily defended areas such as the omegalisk lair. Certain units such as liberators can have the inspire aura too, inspiring crap patrol units even when the character is not around. Irradiate Aura Irradiate aura is a very useful skill when pushing into heavily defended areas. It damages nearby enemy units and structures, and the damage increases the longer the unit or structure stays in the radius. The damage ramps up even faster when multiple irradiate auras are around, and this can help to kill bosses very easily. Masteries Energy Mastery This mastery is very useful in conjunction with lightweight equipment mastery as lightweight equipment mastery will allow you to spam your skills, while energy mastery allows you to sustain constant sniping of zerg units. In addition to increasing your energy regeneration and energy maximum, this mastery also improves the delay of shield regeneration. Lightweight Equipment Mastery This mastery is almost always instantly picked up due to the usefulness early in the game. In exchange for 4000-5000 minerals, the cooldown of all active abilities are reduced. This allows Nova to constantly snipe zerg units or use strafe and displace. Weapons Research Mastery Researching this mastery is similar to the lightweight equipment mastery in the sense that it will cause nova to spend 5000 minerals over time. This increases the overall damage of snipe, critical hit damage, combat drones damage and Nova's auto attack, and increase the range and the attack speed of his auto attack too. This is extremely useful compared to most of the other masteries early on in the game. Allrounder Mastery This mastery is usually picked only when grinding rank points, as most players do not want to waste a mastery point on this mastery. However, when grinding rank points, games can be rather long. Thus, the extra 2 talents at the start and the extra 2 talent points every 45 minutes can help a lot. Also, energy maximum is increased, however it is rather small and energy mastery is a better bet. Iron Man Mastery A very useful mastery when playing easy, hard or mental difficulties. This protects the character's xp and gold hen he or she dies, making it a very good mastery for newer players who might die easily. Most players would want to pick this mastery if they are playing on hard and above, especially when losing all the gold when a hybrid destroyer and spore crawlers kills nova sucks a lot. Big Game Hunter Mastery This mastery increases both auto attack and grenade damage against massive units, such as ultralisks, queens and abberations. Also, extra xp is given after killing them. This is very useful because Nova can learn more talents quickly after killing massive units. This also makes killing the ultralisks easier. Killer Instinct Mastery This mastery allows Nova to increase critical hit chance by 20%, which slowly builds in 20 increments. After reaching 20%, critical hits has a chance to restore 4% of Nova's energy. This is very good because nova has not much energy regeneration early game and players would want to spam out strafes or snipes early game. Weakspot Mastery This mastery increases armour, auto attack and grenade damage. Compared to other masteries, weakspot mastery is considered a sub-par mastery because it does not give special benefits other than just increasing stats, which can be upgraded through certain talents. Thus, this should be one of the last few masteries players pick. Marksmen Mastery This mastery increases snipe's basic stats. It increases snipe damage by 250 and the range by 6. This mastery is extremely good because it will help to kill zerg units that are normally harder to kill. Thus, players should opt to pick this mastery up either early or mid game. Shadow Walker Mastery (Unlockable Mastery) This is Nova's unlockable mastery. It allows Nova to cloak and detect cloaked or burrowed units. However, as compared to other masteries, this unlockable mastery is not very useful if the player has chosen the Air Support perk. Thus, this mastery should be picked up relatively late game and almost the last mastery. Nuke Mastery An almost must have mastery, the nuke mastery gives a higher nuke radius, higher nuke damage against heroic and a global cast range. This allows Nova to call down nukes as long as there is vision. This helps to clear areas much easier, especially when the cast range for nukes is very small. However, it is not recommended to pick nuke mastery early in the game, as nukes are not needed. Drone Hanger Mastery This mastery gives two more combat drones, removes the energy cost to deploy them and improves the attack speed of combat drones by 0.5 seconds, which is doubling the attack speed of the combat drones. This mastery is very useful, but usually is not picked up early in the game as it costs 2000 minerals to learn. Emergency Kit Mastery This mastery allows Nova to have a lot more sustainability in the field. It grants Nova the emergency kit talent, which restores life when Nova's health drops too low, with a cooldown of 60 seconds. It is automatically activated. This mastery also gives Nova 600 shields. This mastery is pretty good for newer players trying out the game or Nova, but usually is not picked up by better players if they feel that they are able to sustain themselves easily. Ghost Academy Training Mastery This mastery is very good as it decreases snipe's cast point, meaning that it allows nova to cast snipe with the animation delay or cast delay. This increases the frequency which players can cast snipe. Also, the snipe damage is increases heavily against light units, allow Nova to one shot many light units, increases energy max and reduces the mineral cost of nukes. This mastery is overall very strong as it upgrades all aspects of Nova's main skills, which is snipe, energy and nukes.